FISCAL POLICY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12767, 14 September 1903, Page 3

FISCAL POLICY.

ITS HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE. (By Professor Cramb, in the London Daily Mail.) From tho standpoint of history, Mr Chamberlain's policy is but a phaeo in a movoment which definitely announced itself, notmerely in individual politicians, but in the English race towards the c.oso of the eishtecnth century. A series of blinding followed by a measureless disaster —the loss d! our plantations in America—had convulsed tho nation to iis centre, and from that hour of triumph and disaster the movement began which in recent times _ has led such incidontg as the extrusion of the L rench from Iv'ypt, the suppression, of the Boer Republics, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, and the erection of tho Commonwealth of Australia.

In philosophical terminology the meaning of the movement is simply this: from the stage of eelf-consciousncss as a democratic nation, Britain is passing into tlio stage of self-consciousness as a democratic empire. And in this effort Britain can find no instruction in the statesmanship of tho past, for tlie empires of (lis past confronted no problem equally complex and vast. Knplnnd, in the very act of creating a world-empire without a parallel, is at the same time founding a school in empire for future ■generations, and for empire.? whose very forms and localisations arc hid as yet in dateless time.

"Within the British Empire, which, strictly speaking, is but at Uls outset of its carecr, dating only from the first quarter of the nineteenth century, a? within every organism, disruptive forces are in perpetual operation, and at different periods different statesmen have endeavoured to nullify tlio;e forces or to convert lliem into forces of cohesion. Mr Chamberlain's fiscal policy is tlio immediate complement of tho policy which led to the war in South A'frica. II ia his way of answering tho problem—Will the twentieth century in its course knit mor>» closoly tho ties of sentiment which bind England and her colonies by adding to these bonds Ihe bonds yet more potent of mutual interest and mutual fears?

He was 110 statesman who in the House tho other day derided an empire founded 011 sordid self-interest. Had those bonds of mutual interest and mutual foars existed in 1775 Washington would have gone to his grave a loyal Knglishman. No man, in a sense, ever did a greater disservice to his country than General .James Wolfe. His ill-starred victory, by removing from tho colonists the salutary terror of France bofore cither Kngland or the colonists understood tho significance of the hour, made ovcry British farmer on American soil a potential rebel.

I oan never share, I confess, the complacency with which certain literary politicians regard tho loss of the American -colonies. To me the surrender after Yorktown is still the greatest disaster in England's history, and, rightly understood, tho greatest disaster in America's history. But in the twentieth century, at anyrate, tlio time is past when tho colonies could regard their separation from the Mother Country without apprehension or England regard their disaffection with unconcern, To the colonies tlio issue of the present debate is as momentous as to England. The future of the world is to the empires of the world.

The same power which three years ago made Pretoria within easy striking distanco of London will ill Ihe immediate future place Wellington and Sydney within easy striking distance of Berlin or St. Petersburg, Washington or Tokio. But for two or fur three generations to come it means suffering. it means self-sacrifice, it means daring— such self-sacrifice as in the time of Frederick Prussia underwent in order to establish her claim to bo a nation—it nnvins sacrifice and it means daring nn' - ? the Empire is to sink to tho rank of- protected, if interesting, nationalities Belgium or Scrvia, and, sundering, accept in its isolated fragments freedom as a dole from another which in the game of empire has better known how to dare. It is as useless to appeal to tho gallant litt-lo England which scattered Philip's few lumbering ships as to appeal to the England of Eadwine. The empire which ceases to advance has begun to declino: the empire which recedes is dead already. The Roman Ccesars and the Doges of Venice understood this.

But tho memory of a democracy is short. Only four years ago England,' a 6 by a lightning flash, saw the abyss upon which she was rushing; saw tlio pitch of glory to which sho might climb. To tho nation, stern aoid high, Destiny then presented a draft headed "Conscription." Tho tuition refused to ondorso it; but, undeludwl by our phantom Army Corps, tho same stern and high mosMvgei, returning, presents tho same bill, but headed now "Bread Tax." Four years ago we answered in cffect: "Let us have not conscription, but a quasiconscription." If wo answer now, "Tax anything, but not bread"; if we huggermugger once more and say, "Not Protection, but quasi-Prctection," in what shape do wo imagino the messenger of fato will next roturn?

To English ears the term "Destiny" has, I am aware, a suspicious or alien sound. Yet, with the exception of tho Arab, mo nation's history and no nation's literature are so pervaded by tho thought which underlies the word.

Tlie heroes of the first English epic, like the first warrior kings cf England, carry out ■their work under the shadow of a grand and sombre fatalism. It is tho faith of Byro'n in his maturity and of tho last years of Oarlylo. Genius for empire in a raoj is analogous to genius for art in an individual. It is a force from within, am inner necessity which impels tho race irresistibly to its doom, and, transmitted in tlio- very blood of the race from generation to generation, manifests in that scrips of phenomena which, when the drama of the race is elided, constitute it* "history." Tlie greatest statesmen of the world—men whom it would be rash to accuse of fa.ncifulnoss—have acknowledged this power in the moments of their deepest insight—Sulla, Ciesar, Cromwell, Bismarck

And certainly if any raoe can arrogate the right to name " cmnire " as its destiny, that race is the Enjrlicli, For that consciousnee? of a power not it=e!t. yet it» truer self, heats at the heart of England's history, and alike in war amd in religion determines the great crises of that history. The dream of empire in tho tenth centurv transformed Emit from an adventurer into a worldrnler. Tho same tlrer.m shapes the policy of William—not "conqueror" in any modern sense of the term, but " conruiacsior," the la»t of the " co-scc»!;ers," those hand of adventurers, the bravest of the whole Teutonic kindred, who for six centuries poured themselves into England—and his policy determine? the policy 0? Norman and of Angevin for two centuries after. England's ware were then wars for empire—a hopeless empire, an empire on tlio fields of France. Wc rained tlie glittering battles, but wo lost- France. But within the same century England, in the eunset and in the sunrise, discovered the path to a mightier destiny. And for that newer Empire slowly arising, and for the establishment of her peace—the Pax Britannica—upon those beneath her sway, nil lipi- later wars were WMred, from Cadi?, and the Azores to Dargai and Paardeberg.

In i>. speech before the Liberal League Lord Roscbcry the other day made a remarkable comment upon the policy of the Government. He accused Mr Cha'mberlain of dragon? " the unity of the. Empire" from it? sanetuaricd silence, and tossing it for debate inlo the market- place, and saw in tins the beginning of the end. The omen indisputably was sinister. It recalled instantly to the mind that paragraph in which a Tloman orator and lmtorinn accuses the legions of Galba of betraying a secret of State—that the power might bo whero Romo was not,—a taunt strangely fulfilled two centimes later; and Lord Roscbcry's sentences left upon the, mind something of the impression which in the recent war the opening of the morning newspapers some•times nrodueed.

But has Ur Chamberlain really divulged i secret of .State? Jn a democracy ail is dismissed. When the press is freo nothing is sacrosanct. The whole world, so to speak, is but one vast market place. No, Mr Chamberlain has betrayed no secret of State; rather, I should say. like Turcot, at the zenith of his power, and at the bszard of that power, .ho has for'oed 'from the study into tho sphere of practical politics the most fate-fraught question which England has had to face for over a century and a-nuartec.